Wow. What a ride. To be fair, I’ve been a big fan of both these creators for a long time, so getting this was agiven. But man, this a crash course in how to do comics. Like holding a movie in your hands. Highly recommend not missing this title.

Still trying to get two pages up a week. It would serve the story better to keep things moving instead of falling into the rhythm of a weekly cliffhanger. Mostly it comes down to spending spare moments scratching at the plot and scripting out a few pages at a time. The art side of things is getting faster. Hopefully not too fast that it comes off as sloppy.

Head on over to gocomics.com to read the latest episode of the Conjurers comic. I’m trying to get another page up by Friday. There’s a lot going on in this sequence and I’d rather not make everyone wait a week between scenes. So, I’ll kick in a little over drive and pump out some pages. It’ll help me get a better handle on this “quick” style. It’s odd attempting to produce pages rapidly and still make them look cool.

Here’s a quick shot of page 43 in progress. This entire comic has been an experiment in process. I knew going in that it had to be fast. I’m used to tightening my pencils with a vice grip before inking. For the Conjurers comic, I’m slowly refining the speed approach. After thumbnailing the page I rough it out with blue lead, focusing on shape and placement. It’s hard to shut off the detail side of the brain, but it’s getting easier. After that I go right in with inks. These days, I’m having fun trying different ballpoint pens. Avoiding my brushes and technical pens keeps my from tumbling into the pit of over wrought crosshatching and stippling.

The magic happens when subtle, sloppy watercolors are sloshed on. This has been the hardest lesson. Go lightly into the night with a soaked brush and diluted pigment. Less is more on the first pass. I brush in light shadows, again, focusing on defining shapes and light. After that, I break out a shredded sponge and dabble on some texture with an eye for how hit spotlights the important bits.

No secret by now that 99% of my drawing supplies come from jetpens.com. That 99% does include every pen I use. They were kind enough to post a small interview. Leave ’em a comment and tell them what they think. Or what you think about my answers. Or general statements regarding puppetry and Tesla’s squirrel training manual. Your choice.